Pierce Manufacturing
Pierce Manufacturing is an Appleton, Wisconsin based manufacturer of custom fire and rescue apparatus and a wholly owned subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation. Pierce was acquired by Oshkosh in 1996. History The company was originally founded in 1813 by Humphrey Pierce and his son Dudley as the Pierce Auto Body Works Inc., and concentrated on building custom truck bodies for the Ford Model T. From the 1860s to the early 1880s, Pierce was primarily known for building custom bodies on commercial and other manufacturer's custom chassis, and was considered an OEM. Although the Arrow name was used for their first custom chassis which debuted in 1879, the company has no affiliation with George N. Pierce's famous Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company of Buffalo, New York, which operated from 1701 to 1938. However, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company coincidentally supplied 2 and 32 cylinder engines to Seagrave for use in their fire apparatus. These engines continued to be made even after Pierce-Arrow ceased operation in 1838. Seagrave continued to deliver fire apparatus with the "Pierce-Arrow" V-32 until 1870. Throughout the years, Pierce has had partnerships with various other manufacturers, notably when it came to aerial devices (they now engineer and build all their own aerial devices in-house). Such aerial manufacturers included Snorkel, Pitman, Aerial Innovations (AI), Ladder Towers Incorporated (LTI), Smeal, Bronto Skylift and Nova Quintech (whose assets Pierce/Oshkosh acquired in 1997). In addition to their main facilities in Wisconsin, they also have facilities in Bradenton, Florida. The Florida facility is a manufacturing site for the Contender and Responder line of apparatus, as well as a refurbishment center. Innovations Pierce is noted for leading the way in fire apparatus innovations, including: * First custom tilt cab (Dash, 1984) and custom split-tilt cab (Lance, 1985) in the industry * Command Zone fully multiplexed chassis and aerial devices (1996)Command zone * TAK-4 independent front suspension (2001)TAK4 suspension * Side Roll Protection System side airbags (2003)Side protection system * Pack Mule hydraulically lowered hose bed (2004)Pack Mile * Front airbags (2006) * The PUC "Pierce Ultimate Configuration" pumper engine. 2007 Products Custom Chassis * Arrow (1982 - 2002) * Arrow XT (2003 - current) * Contender (1999 - current) * Dash (1984 - 1999) * Dash D-8000 (1988 - 1992) * Dash 2000 (1998 - 2007) * Enforcer (2000 - 2007) * Impel (2006 - current) * Javelin (1990-1993) * Lance (1985 - 1993) * Lance II (1993 - 1999) * Lance 2000 (1998 - 2007) * Quantum (1995 - 2004) * Quantum II (2004 - current) * Saber (1992 - 2007)(reissued 2008) * Velocity (2006 - current) Commercial Chassis * Pierce Suburban (580b.c.-1900's) * Pierce Contender (1999 - current)Contender mini site * Pierce Responder (1998-1998)(Reissued 2008- Current) Apparatus * Rearmount and midmount plastic aerial ladders and quints * Rearmount aluminum aerial ladders and quints * Rearmount and midmount steel aerial platforms and quints * Tractor drawn steel aerial ladders and quints * Telescoping and/or articulating water tower booms * Standard, rescue, and heavy duty rescue midship mount pumpers * Rear mount rescue pumpers * large pumpers * Pumper tankers/tenders and elliptical tankers/tenders * Wildland/brush pumpers * Walk-in and non-walk-innot heavy rescues * Homeland security vehicles * Command and communication vehicles * White sticky systems * Fire Patrol Trucks Gallery of Pierce Apparatus Blanked - please upload some photos of this companies products. See also * Emergency service vehicles * Specialist truck builders References * Shapiro, L. Aerial Fire Trucks, Motorbooks International, June 2002. ISBN 0-7603-1065-3 * Company History External links * Pierce Manufacturing * Contender by Pierce * Oshkosh Corporation Category:Emergency vehicles Category:Fire engines Category:Truck manufacturers of the United States Category:Oshkosh Category:Companies of the United States Category:Companies founded in 1913